


A Choir of Furies

by lyannaes (badwolfreborn)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-23 12:56:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9658337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfreborn/pseuds/lyannaes
Summary: Death haunted Castle Black that night, but by dawn the fighting was done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kakashihatake123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakashihatake123/gifts).



> Happy (early) birthday, Kira. You’ll get your bed sharing (eventually). 
> 
> I'm hoping to have this wrapped up in seven chapters, but seeing as this took triple of the amount of words it was supposed to, we'll have to see how that goes.

The cold burned.

Jon had been warned by Tormund once, when the Wildlings poured through the Wall as it wept, that fighting the others was like fighting the cold, a mist with teeth that crawled inside you and froze you from the inside out. Jon had thought, for just a moment, that he understood – he was a northerner, had never left the North, had played in the cold and trekked in the cold and killed in the cold – but kept his mouth shut, knowing that living men with cobbled-together weaponry could never truly compare to dead men built from shadows.

 _Can your sword cut through cold, Crow?_   Tormund had asked, not expecting an answer. And now, he would never get one, as Jon’s blood poured onto the ice underneath him, seeping between his body and the earth. 

_Can your sword cut through cold?_

-

Melisandre remained inside her rooms as the Wall descended into chaos, Crow against Crow against Wildling against Queensman, every faction desperate to survive the night even as Snow’s body still laid in the courtyard where they had killed him.

 _Daggers in the dark,_ she had told him _. Ice, and daggers in the dark. Keep your wolf beside you._

(She had seen the wolf be locked up in Snow’s quarters from her own window. She could not help those that would not listen, not matter how much she wanted to. Melisandre had learnt that many lifetimes ago.)  

Melisandre's door was bolted shut, and though she did not know who else on the Wall would perish that night – friend or foe – she knew she would not be one of them, she knew that she would leave this small room she called her own unharmed. R'hllor would keep her safe. He needed her, like he needed her King, and Shireen too, locked in her own room by some Queensman or another.

Nevertheless, she would not be sleeping tonight.

-

Bowen doubted the blood would wash off his hands as easily it would be wiped from his sword.

 _I killed the Lord Commander,_ a voice whispered inside of him, _I committed treason this night. I killed the Lord Commander, and I’ll likely kill half a dozen of mine own Brothers before the sun has risen._

He did not want to, could not even pretend that he would do so for any reason other to save his own skin, could not pretend he was a skilled warrior when he preferred counting swords to swinging them, but with his own life (and his honour, and his Watch) on the line, he’d slaughter any man who came too close. He needed to, so he would.

That was the reasoning that had led to his actions, and that was the reasoning that would see him through to dawn.

_For the Watch._

-

 _The kneelers have gone mad,_ Tormund thought, as he stepped over the dead bodies of some of the Queensmen he had killed that night, the ugly bloke with the comically large ears and the young lad who was meant to marry Gerrick’s third daughter. _The kneelers have gone mad, and now we will have half a hundred bodies to burn by dawn._

He was about to prepare for his departure for Hardhome to rescue whatever remained of Mance’s followers when he had heard yelling outside. Back home, Tormund would have thought little and less of such noise, but the kneelers and Crows practically lived in silence, too scared and small to live loud whilst they still could, and something about the yelling had seemed different to the drunken brawls he was used to.

By the time he had reached the courtyard, it was chaos.

He had not seen Snow’s body himself, had only been told what had happened by one of his own after killing every Queensman that came at him with his bare hands, and there would not be time to see the boy to rest for a while. Tormund could only hope that someone had moved his body to somewhere quieter, somewhere he would not be trampled or pissed on, somewhere more fitting for a good lad like Snow.

Tormund had threatened to kill Snow himself half a dozen times, but the boy had been decent, a good man, a good Lord Commander, and almost a good free man too at times, if not a bloody miserable shit. He had cared, almost as much as Mance had done, and the bastards had killed him for it _. The kneelers hate us so much they’ll kill one another to prove it,_ Tormund thought, as he heard sounds of fighting inside and turned around to go join in, undoubtedly a free man or Crow loyal to Snow against one of the conniving bastards that had kill him. Moons ago, the thought of kneelers slaughtering one another would have made Tormund piss himself in glee, but not now.

_We have more important enemies now._

_And soon, half a hundred bodies to burn, too._

-

Death haunted Castle Black that night, but by dawn the fighting was done.  

-

As the sun rose and the Wall began to weep ( _better it weep than not_ , Tormund thought, _winter or otherwise_ ), the dead were counted and the injured treated as best as could be. Only thirty dead in the end, mostly Queensmen and Crows who had their weapons turned against them, and the two surviving traitors that had plunged their knives in Snow’s back were thrown into the Ice Cells to be dealt with later, but even that smaller number seemed far too large in the light of day.

The bodies were already being piled on top of the pyre built when the fighting was done, with the survivors – free men, and the Crows who had seen the murder of their Lord Commander, including Satin, the pretty boy with hair softer than anything north of the Wall and the tracks from tears still upon his face – wanting to get the dead gone for good before they could rise.

(Tormund didn’t know if the dead could even rise this far south, but he didn’t see any reason to push their luck.)

The pyre grew higher and higher, with even the traitors laid gently in unity, and Tormund tried to recognise as many of the blue-tinted faces as possible, tried to whisper a sentence of prayer for each and every soul to safely reach whatever awaited them on the other side of life; they were murderers, yes, and cowards too, but so were many of the men in this yard. It was hard not to be afraid, nowadays. He saw a few Crows and traitors in the pyre, a handful of the free men that had been taken out before they could realise what was even going on, but most notably, half a dozen Queensmen, and the bloody woman herself, too, slain by some Crow or free man caught up in the madness (and Tormund did not pity the man who would have to inform the kneeler king of his wife’s death, but the kneeler king was several weeks ride down south, and as long as it wasn’t Tormund, Tormund didn’t particularly care who the unlucky fucker was). The only dead man not on the pyre was Snow himself – Tormund wanted to burn the man alone, as a thank you. Snow had not saved Mance, but he’d saved the rest of them, at the cost of his own life.

He would not see Snow reach the darkness in the company of his killers.

Besides, the wolf needed to say his goodbyes.

-

 It wasn’t until noon that Satin released Ghost from Jon’s quarters.

The wolf had howled half the night long – Ghost, who never even sighed loud enough for Satin to hear – audible over the sounds of clashing swords and screams of man and giant alike. Ghost had howled and howled and Satin had been half tempted to let him loose on Jon’s killers himself, until he remembered the rumours of what had happened to Robb Stark’s own wolf at the hand of his master’s murderers.

But by noon, the bodies had been burned and most of the carnage cleared from the courtyard and mess hall; no one wanted to wade amongst the wreckage from the dark night longer than they needed to. All that remained was Jon, and the pink letter that had started it all; Tormund had taken the first, to burn that night, and the King’s Woman had taken the latter, appearing from her room to witness the burnings and disappearing back into them minutes later, letter in hand, no doubt to spend the rest of the day screaming and crying and praying feverishly.  The daughter too – _Shireen, Shireen is her name_ – had returned to her room before the fires finished consuming her mother, and her guards; Satin had knocked to see if she needed anything (she hadn’t), but he could not begrudge the girl her need for privacy today.

No one was up for much conversation. 

The moment the wolf was free, it was running, and Satin had never caught up, reaching the room Tormund had stored Jon in several minutes later, the beast already curled up next to the table upon which rested Jon’s body. It barely even lifted his head to acknowledge Satin’s entrance, or his approaching of the man he’d called friend, called Commander. Tormund wasn’t around, either, although Satin knew he felt responsible to see to Jon’s burial for some reason or another, but he would return soon, undoubtedly.

Jon Snow had given Satin security and friendship on the Wall, more than he’d earned and far more than he’d expected. _I talked often of being a whore,_ Satin remembered, a lump in his throat. _I told Jon I missed the company of the men in King’s Landing, but I never told him how grateful I was for his own._

_Jon Snow treated me better than any of the men that payed for the pleasure of my time. And now he is dead._

Satin did not know what would come tomorrow, or in the weeks to come, but without Jon, he doubted any of them would survive the wars to come.

-

Tormund knew he needed to burn Snow before the sun set for the night, but something kept him in the room, as the air got colder and the Wall ended its weeping for the day.

 _One hour more,_ Tormund insisted in the early afternoon, then the late afternoon, then the early evening. _Soon. Twenty minutes more._ _The wolf needs to say its goodbyes._

(Ghost had not left Jon’s side in hours and everyone knew it. No one pointed it out.)

-

R'hllor could not have abandoned her now. Melisandre gripped the letter in her hands, re-reading the words that she had understood many hours ago.

_Your false king is dead, bastard. I have his magic sword. I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and his red witch._

It could not be; it would not be, if Melisandre had any ability to change it. Stannis was to lead her (everyone) into the long night – he was Azor Ahai, the Prince who was Promised, the man to take them into the darkness and bring them out alive and unharmed on the other side.

_Your false king is dead, bastard._

The fires were never wrong; Melisandre, yes, always _, I am flawed and human and R’hllor can only lead me so far,_ but she had seen Stannis in the fires, she had seen Dragonstone, she had seen the swords and the dead men and the victories of the Great Other, and she had done what she needed to do for R’hllor’s children to survive the wars yet to be fought. She could not give up now.

Stannis was Azor Ahai.

_Your false king is dead, bastard._

As the sun began to set at the Wall, Melisandre knew that she would do what she needed to do, no matter the cost. Always.

She needed to find Shireen.

Her father needed them.

-

As the sun set at the Wall, Satin could smell the fire.

He walked outside, slowly, not wanting to see Tormund Giantsbane throwing Jon’s body onto the pyre. He did not want to see the flesh peel and crackle and turn into ash, did not want to be there when the fires faded and all that remained was logs to be removed and bones to be buried. But he had to; he owed it to Jon, and the Wildlings and loyal Brothers he had fought alongside last night.

So he dragged himself to watch Jon’s body be burned, ignoring the lump in his throat and the weight in his stomach that would not shift, no matter what he drank or ate or tried to ignore.

Until the red woman threw herself and King Stannis’ daughter, both screaming, onto the fires behind him.

-

As the sun set outside Winterfell, Stannis knew he could not act yet, as he stood at the head of the makeshift strategy table situated within his makeshift war room. Asha stood directly to his side – _she was meant to be a prisoner, damn it, not an ally_ – with the Mormonts, Glovers, Umbers and a fair few clan leaders surrounding the rest of it. They were waiting on his word, on his strategy, and he would give it to them.

Bolton and his bastard invoked fear within the northerners ( _one-part fear for every two-parts hatred,_ Asha had commented, and as much as he hated to admit that the blasted woman got it right, she probably had the correct read of the situation in this case), but the man was not infallible. All Lord Bolton had needed to do was sit inside the castle whilst Stannis’ army starved in the cold; instead, he had sent a sizable portion of his own strength forth to give battle whilst Stannis’ men held the high ground. _We held the high ground, we kept the high ground, and now one thousand men of his are dead, and barely one hundred of mine own._ But Bolton wass not a fool, despite his hulking, brutish son. He would not make the same mistake again, Stannis knew, but he also could not commit to sending his men in waves against Winterfell’s walls, not realistically, not yet. The castle was old, and strong, and the men inside strong and ready for war – at least in theory, although Asha’s translations of her brother’s tales cast some doubt upon those last points.

Those doubts were what made Stannis’ plans possible.

They would wait here – now that the army was not trekking through piles of snow across hundreds of leagues, their limited amount of food was a much less pressing issue, as long as they had enough to keep their strength up. They would wait for one moon, two moons, three if needs be, until the tensions within the castle boiled over and those inside killed one another before Stannis even had to approach the walls. He knew better than any northerner the strains a siege could cause even amongst a devoted, united army, and the Bolton army was neither.

Besides, Davos would not be waiting to rescue Lord Bolton anytime soon.

“My Lords and Ladies, prepare your men for a siege. Make your camps comfortable and get your food rations in order. We will attack in two moon turns, if they have not killed themselves in the meantime.”

-

Tormund watched in horror as the red witch and the young monster burned up.

He did not know, would never know what caused her to throw herself and her king’s heir onto Snow’s burning pyre, and he was thankful for that. Tormund had seen a thousand horrific things beyond the Wall – both natural and manmade, and more recently, the horrifically unnatural had also assisted plenty in making the night’s a little bit harder to sleep through – and any one of those things would be fair cause for being driven into madness. He did not need to know which horrific event in her own life had caused the witch’s. However, it seemed unfair that she had taken the young monster down with her.

The crowd of bodies stood around the pyre watched in silence as the screams of the two people shrivelled up quickly, pain and terror quickly being swallowed up into death and the night. They had all seen too much death in the past day to be terrifically shaken by two more.

And besides, the flames were hypnotic this close. Tormund could understand how people lost themselves within them.

-

 _Burnings never last this long,_ Satin realised, long after the screams faded. _The fires should have begun to consume themselves by now. We should be collecting the bones._

They were rising higher.

-

Jon Snow opened his eyes to flame and smoke.

And screams.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not writing smut or anything yet. I’m saving that for later ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> Also, I haven't a clue how to write post-revelation Harry, so have this mess where he comes off more like Willas than anyone else.

"My lords, my ladies, we stand here in the sight of gods and men to witness the union of man and wife. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever."

Sansa glanced at Harry quickly, noting the look of dumbfoundment still clearly visible on his face – she could not be entirely sure whether his mouth had shut even once since seeing her walk down the small aisle in the small Sept found within the Gates of the Moon. Even as her soon-to-be-husband had slipped off her maiden cloak ( _white and grey, just like Petyr promised_ ) to cover Sansa in his own cloak of white and red, his hands had shaken and his moves had been hesitant, as if she would disappear was he to move too quickly. _My Harry. My lord, my lover, my husband – and he cannot play along._ _Please,_ Sansa begged to some god or another, or maybe all of them at one, _let him play along._

Thankfully, Harry hadn’t too much to do, besides stand there and repeat the words spoken to him by the septon; he could manage that, just for a short while, just until Sansa could steal him away for a few moments and explain … she hoped.

Sansa herself was not entirely convinced that she was fulfilling her role correctly _\- be chaste, daughter, be the maiden incarnate if you have to, make everyone think that you are innocent of any deceptions_ – her shoulders sat too tense, she could feel it, and the faint flush on her cheeks came from desperation, not virtue. Even so, she knew, her standards were far higher than anyone else’s in the sept (King’s Landing had given her those, at least), and a few nerves could be forgiven on a blushing maiden’s wedding day. As she rose her hand to meet Harry’s – Sansa sent a quick thank you to whatever gods had heard her for making him raise his hand in time to the septon’s order – she noticed that the faint tremble of her own hands matched his almost perfectly. _A perfectly normal couple,_ she thought, with a quick smirk hidden to almost all, _on a perfectly normal wedding day._  

The septon grasped both Sansa’s and Harry’s hands within his larger, weathered ones for just a moment, before pulling away to tie a white ribbon around them.

 _A perfectly normal couple, on a perfectly normal wedding day._ The thought, as false as it was, almost gave Sansa comfort as her life was tied permanently to the boy’s stood beside her.

“Let it be known Harrold of Houses Hardyng, Waynwood and Arryn, and Sansa of Houses Stark and Tully, are one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder. In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one for eternity.” The septon gave the ribbon the slightest pull, and Sansa watched as the ribbon unravelled, falling to the ground slowly. She could not look away, would not look away, not until she had to.

She could only pray that her plans did not unravel the same way.

-

“There will be no bedding ceremony,” Harry whispered to her, already far too deep into his cups but far calmer than he had been just a few hours prior. “They shall never shame you that way.”

“I do not mind,” Sansa lied, thinking of her terrible dreams, and felt Petyr’s silent approval, and Robin’s disapproval, from where Arryn and Baelish sat beside her. “It is a tradition. If it is what you wish, my lord -”

“You needn’t lie to me no longer, Lady Sansa. You are my wife, now, and my family. It is my duty to make you happy.”

(The very thought of honesty did not sit entirely right with her.)

(Still, on this occasion, it could not hurt her.)

“Thank you.”

-

As Harry led her from the courtyard acting as a feast hall, there were few complaints and many cheers, with most among the crowd assuming something Sansa did not yet want to think of, even as she walked towards it.

Not Petyr, though. Petyr remained at the table, where she had left him, unsmiling.

 _I do not think I want to know why,_ Sansa thought to herself, already fully aware of why.

She was out of his control now.

She was no longer Alayne, no longer his bastard daughter to some bastard whore, no longer some fairly unremarkable maiden with a beguiling face and an even more beguiling father. She never had been. She was, and always would be, Sansa Stark of Winterfell.

A woman married. A woman soon to be free.

-

The chambers were grand, far grander than anything she had known as Alayne; closer to her rooms in King’s Landing than anything else, also cooler, too, even with the fireplace casting heat on every surface and the thick curtains drawn to hide what she was sure was a perfectly pleasant view.

But her focus was on Harry.

_My Harry. My lord, my lover, my husband._

Even now, in the rooms they would be calling their own, it did not seem real.

-

“You made me think you were Alayne.” 

 _I could not be going around revealing my name to everyone in the Seven Kingdoms, could I? I am wanted for murdering King Joffrey_.

She burst into tears. That was good. Tears were good.

“I am sorry, Harry. I am truly am. I did not mean to deceive you, really, but Lord Baelish insisted that I could not tell you the truth yet. He said that he has saved my life so many times, but he might not be able to do it again if word got out that I was hiding in the Vale.” Harry’s brow was furrowed, and Sansa could see the pieces connect in his mind, but she needed to make sure. “I wanted to tell you, really, as soon as our betrothal was announced. I – I began to care for you a long time ago, but Lord Baelish made me talk to other men to make you think I was truly a bastard in my heart, so that no one would suspect a thing. Please forgive me.”

-

 _There’s nothing to forgive you for,_ Harry had whispered later that night, hugging her to his chest. _I care for you too, Alayne or Sansa or whatever name the world chose for you._

_I’ll keep you safe._

-

“Littlefinger made you lie to me?”

“Yes, but only to keep me safe. And Robin. And … and he worried that if I was revealed before our marriage, Cersei Lannister would send the King’s armies to the Vale in retribution.”

That, at least, was entirely truthful.

“Why bring you here then – why marry you to me?”

Sansa smiled then, reaching out and taking her husband’s hand gently.

“Lord Baelish believes that times are changing. He said that the kingdoms will never be the same again, and it is time for the Vale to ensure the safety of its own future.” _Almost there, sweetling. You nearly have him._ “The Boltons rule the north, but Stark blood is more noble than theirs will ever be; the Freys hold Riverrun, but the Riverlanders remain loyal to the Tully line. Lord Baelish believes that our union will ensure no such conflict takes place here – by uniting my bloodline with your strength, no one will ever be able to rob your sons of their home, or their power, especially as Lord Jon Arryn was my uncle-by-marriage.”

It would have been almost amusing, watching the wheels turn in his mind, if it wasn’t so oddly saddening.

“And you believe him?”

A slow smile, now, a gentle one. _Make everyone think that you are innocent of any deceptions._

“He’s never been wrong, has he?”

-

“You never need worry about Cersei Lannister again. She’ll never have you.”

Sansa smiled into the darkness, where Harry could not see the flashing of teeth or the feverish glee in her eyes.

She would make sure of it.

-

That night, Sansa dreamt of Winterfell.

Scorch marks and blood stains on the castle walls were visible above snow banks large enough to cover a man several times over, and the courtyard Sansa had played in as a young girl stank of flesh and sea-water, as the bodies of northerners and krakens alike were displayed on newly built spikes.

 _They can make me look at the bodies,_ she told herself _, but they can't make me see them._

Every face was different – new and young and unfamiliar, but all lined and wrinkled as bad as Old Nan’s ever was – and the colours of the castles gone, soft whites and greys and bright reds and blues replaced with black, all black, aside from the dark, clotted reds and pinks painted on flags and pulled from underneath skin of dead men. Old Nan, Hodor, Beth and Rodrik and Maester Luwin, even sweet old Gage and Septon Chayle and fierce Farlen, all gone. All dead. Like the Starks were thought to be. Jon wasn’t, but he was at the Wall, and could not reclaim Winterfell even if he wanted to. Sansa wasn’t, but no one knew that outside of the Vale.

_There is nothing left of me here now anyway. I know no one, and no one knows me. Would they recognise me if this was real? Would they recognise a pretender, here to steal my home from underneath me once more?_

Sansa knew she had to get Harry and Robin to act before it was too late, before Winterfell was lost to her and her blood forever, but she was scared. She was scared, had always been scared, since the moment they took her father’s head off – no, since the moment they killed Stark men in the streets of the capital without consequence and almost killed her father along with them – and though she hid it better now, wrapped it beneath layers of lies and smiles and Arbor gold, she could not deny it to herself, not in her dreams.

_I am only a young girl, repeating the words they taught me._

_No one ever taught me how to lead men to war._

_-_

King Stannis Baratheon woke to darkness.

The world outside of his tent was silent, or nearly, only the softest sounds of falling snow brushing against the outside walls disturbing the emptiness of nights. Had this camp been built over summer, men would drink and gamble into the early hours of the morning despite the levity of their situation, but here they would retreat to their tents and occupied village homes the moment they were relieved from their duties. In truth, there was not much to do that needed the soldiers’ attentions every day; feeding what few horses they had left, feeding one another, attempting to light camp fires and train with one another in the deep snow – each and every one was an uphill battle, admittedly, but Stannis’ men and the northerners were both equally used to hardships, especially in the more recent years, and the tasks still only took up a small portion of the day. Stannis could feel the building temptation in the camp – to throw all caution to the wind and run at Winterfell, to take it in the face of Bolton’s surprise or die trying – but Stannis had been fighting for his crown and for his kingdoms for years now, and tensions within the walls of the castle would boil over soon, like he promised two weeks ago surrounded by his commanders and key allies. His men could wait a little longer.

He would not waste them in a fruitless attempt born of impatience and a hatred of cold nights.

Stannis would not deny, however, that he wanted Winterfell. He wanted to take the castle, he wanted to sleep somewhere where he would not see his breath in the air in front of him, wanted his men to not have to rest in the homes of ghosts that abandoned the area when the land was ravaged, by first the Greyjoys and then the Boltons, wanted to wake up and spend the day somewhere real, surrounded by walls where the dangers could be seen long before they reached him. Stannis wanted Winterfell, and he wanted to be able to write to the Wall, to that darned Jon Snow, to tell him to send his daughter and Melisandre and his Queen to him. He wanted his daughter situated in a real castle, befitting the girl who would one day rule the Seven Kingdoms after his passing, not in the half-empty castle built on ice and rotting wood.

He wanted the castle, he wanted the north and his family returned to him, but he would have neither yet.

_I cannot strike until the Boltons are at their weakest. Any sooner and it shall be their weapons at our throats, not the other way around._

A moon and a half to wait, at the most, surely. Then Winterfell would be his.

-

In their two weeks of marriage, Sansa and Harry had almost fallen into an easy relationship. Almost.

It was a hard task to re-evaluate Harry, to balance the pig-headed and only occasionally charming boy she had known as Alayne with the kinder, almost besotted man that had emerged after their wedding day, and even though she knew that change was almost entirely due to the change in her name and of her hair, a small part of her (a part she had forced down and hidden underneath years of lies and abuse and rude princes and Tyrell heirs) wanted to believe that Harry genuinely cared for her, and for her safety. She could not rest upon her laurels, though, not yet. She had convinced him, she was sure, that their marriage was the best way to ensure his bloodline would rule the Vale for years to come, but she had not even began working on the next phrase of Baelish’s plan yet – every time she tried, her throat closed up and her hands shook. She had to be confident when she spoke of them, or it would not work.

She would not get a second chance at it, she was sure.

Instead, she spent her nights with Harry – and although the act itself was not as horrid as she had learnt to fear, Sansa did not enjoy them, and doubted she ever would – and her days building relationships with the Lords Declarant as Sansa Stark-Hardyng as opposed to the faint ones she had forged as Alayne Stone. The Lords had not hated Alayne, not truly, although the hatred they had borne for her father was very real and certainly contributed to them ignoring her for the most part, but if Sansa was to ensure her marriage to Harry remained stable (and if she wanted support for the next part of her plan) she needed to make herself loved by them, regardless of her faked past.

(She had always heard that love was a surer route to the people's loyalty than fear _. If I am ever a queen, I'll make them love me._ )

It was easier to speak with the Lords when Littlefinger was not around, Sansa knew, but his relative absence the past two weeks had remained almost troubling. Even when she was Alayne, Baelish would disappear for weeks on end, either to visit his men within the Vale or to travel south, pretending to possess an undying loyalty to whoever sat upon the Iron Throne, but it was different now; even when Littlefinger was in the same room as her, his eyes would follow her casually, without any of the intensity she had been so frightened of as Alayne. Sansa had thought that this would please her at first – not even Littlefinger would go for a committed and married woman, irrespective of his feelings regarding the marriage – but it didn’t, like Joffrey’s death hadn’t, or her escape from King’s Landing hadn’t. Instead, it meant that Littlefinger was displeased, in some way or another; he had wanted her to charm Harry, and she had, and he had wanted her to marry Harry, and so she had – but maybe he had wanted to keep Harry at a distance, to continue playing the blushing girl even after their wedding night.

Maybe he had wanted Harry to remain absent after the first night, and to use her new status for his own pleasures. 

_I am not his daughter, and now I will never be his lover. He cannot make me._

Despite this, Sansa knew that the only thing that had kept her alive had been Baelish’s love of her mother, and the opportunities this had granted her. If Littlefinger no longer saw Sansa as his only link to Catelyn, then she could not guarantee his best interest so neatly aligned with her, so she had to ensure that the Lords Declarant would support her over Baelish if they had to choose, regardless of his plans to neutralise them by the end of the year.

She had no other choice.

-

She dreamt of bodies being pressed together, that night, not in the uneasy simplicity she shared with Harry, but hundreds, thousands of men, clothed in steel and blood, pulsing and moving to an unheard rhythm. Sansa was in the middle, dressed in the gown she had married Harry in, but she was being pulled down, trampled, and she could not breath. She tried for screaming, tried crying and pulling at those surrounding her, but they could not hear here, as swords clashed together and men yelled, for their home, for their lovers, for their gods.

_I can’t get up. I am going to die here._

But then the ground beneath her started to shift, moving away from her in waves, and although she kept on falling, it was softer now. Around her, one man’s sword began to glow, heat radiating off it and warming her skin, and then another did, and another, until a thousand swords cast their warm, beautiful light over the men that carried them, and Sansa.

 _It is almost beautiful,_ Sansa thought, as her descent into the soft ground continued, dirt rising quickly to her waist and her chest and her neck, covering her chin and her mouth and her eyes and her eyes, darkness stealing over her and silence falling.  Maybe death would not be such a horrid, ugly thing, after all.

But she could still breathe, and she could feel a new ground beneath her feet.

_Dead girls can’t breathe. Dead girls do not feel._

Sansa pressed forward slightly – but did not meet the unmovable resistance of dirt and ground and death, or even the push back of the swirling, dancing crush of bodies, but instead air. Simple air, dusty, but breathable all the same. She was alive.

Somewhere, in the distance, she could hear a harp.

Turning around – and how _pleasant_ that was, how lovely and life affirming, to be able to move again – Sansa could see that, somehow, there was light in the distance. Nothing much – nothing compared to the glow of a thousand swords, but a candle in the dark nonetheless, which felt almost like the rising sun. She moved towards it, slowly at first, in case the ground decided to swallow her whole once more, but it didn’t, so she ran, ran like she had away Joffrey’s wedding, like she had tried to run from her own, like she had run the day they killed her septa and lost her sister, towards the candle.

Soon enough, she realised it was being held by someone, and then, who was holding it. A dead woman, Sansa knew, a woman whose ghost had haunted Winterfell though her father rarely spoke her name, whose had lived on within Arya, and even Jon.

Aunt Lyanna.

-

Long before dawn, Sansa awoke, gasping, in an empty bed, aside from a note curled up on the pillow beside her own.

-

_My lady,_

_I am sorry to have left you so early, but I know you detest waking before you must and urgent news has come from the north._

_Late last night, Lords Baelish and Royce both received ravens, but given the lateness of the hour, did not open them straight away. Lord Royce, unable to sleep, read his own just a few minutes ago, immediately alerting Lord Baelish and myself of its contents. I am with the two of them now, in Lord Baelish’s chambers._

_Winterfell is under siege. Stannis Baratheon’s men – aided by a small number of northern forces – are responsible, with Lord Bolton and his bastard inside, alongside a decent strength of northern Lords, and – I am sorry to break this news to you, although I am sure you are glad of her survival – your sister, whom was recently married to the bastard. He has asked for our assistance. Royce wants to join the fight, but alongside Baratheon, whilst Baelish is uncertain._

_Come soon,_

_Harry._

 


End file.
